Srila Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada
Srila Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada
Abhayacharan De was born on Sep 1, 1896 in a devout Vaishnav bengali family in Kolkata, India.
His father Gour Mohan De and mother Rajani De were sincere devotees of Lord Krishna and from the very beginning instilled in the family a devotional atmosphere.
From a very young age, Abhay was drawn to the Sri Sri Radha Gobinda deities at the nearby temple and would for hours simply gaze the deities, mesmerized by their beauty and spiritual force.
As a child he had a fairly comfortable and loving family.
At age 5, his father got him a Jagannatha deity cart which young Abhay was particularly attached to and would worship very sincerely. He even organized a Ratha yatra (Chariot procession) for his Jagannath deities just like the original deities at Lord Jagannath's world famous Puri temple and their famed annual Rath yatra. Although this ratha yatra organized by young Abhay was a small scale production on the neighborhood streets, yet the devotion and sincerity shown by Abhay was remarkable and the event was very well received by one and all. This was just a very early glimpse of what Abhay would go on to contribute on the global scale in his later years.
Abhay grew up in a society in early 1900s when the British dominion over India was at its peak. The youth at that time had started to see that the foreign rule was not a permanent answer to India's own quest for self rule and independence. Naturally there was an uprising of nationalism within the youth as a result of this and Abhay was not untouched by this.
As a result during his late teens & early 20s Abhay joined the freedom struggle that was primarily led by Mahatma Gandhi and like most people he had the view that unless India is independent politically, its revival would not be meaningful.
In the midst of this in 1922, on the behest of a friend, one day Abhay happened to meet a well known monk in Gaudiya tradition of Vaishnavism by the name of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Little did Abhay know that this would be a life changing event for him. At the very first meeting with Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, at a place called Ulta danga in Kolkata, the swami urged the english medium educated Abhay to go to western countries to preach Krishna Consciousness in English language. This was a polar opposite of what Abhay had in his belief because he felt unless India attains freedom noone in the west would take any missionary work from India seriously. Hence quite obviously the swami and the young man had a difference in opinion but as Abhay would put it later, the swami with his erudite knowledge and eloquence put a very strong case to Abhay in that very first brief interaction that material & political situations are simply a temporary state and the real permanent state is the spiritual state of Krishna consciousness; as such preaching the Lords glory had no need to wait until political freedom is achieved. "A nice saintly person" Abhay would remark about his first meeting with Srila Bhaktisiddhanta.
Abhay who by now was a householder with the responsibility of a wife and family was another young man living in the middle of a political freedom struggle and was practically guided. He needed a continued source of income and opined that once he had enough wealth to take good care of his family he could freely do spiritual work. Pursuing this he entered into pharmaceutical business and was fairly successful. He thought "I would become rich first and with that money I will be able to better serve the preaching mission" but that was not supposed to be. In 1937, just 4 years after his first initiation by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, his gurudev (spiritual master) passed away. But before passing away, his gurudev instructed him to "print books" whenever he had any money -- an instruction that he carried out until the end. So with his gurudev passing away, his family demanding more attention and the household expenses ever increasing while at the same time his mind always meditating on his gurus last instruction of printing books -- this duality of mental status meant his business suffered and was dismantled. As Abhay tried to follow his teachers instructions, in 1944, he started a biweekly english magazine titled "Back to Godhead" for which he was the sole proprieter -- designer, writer, editor, publisher, distributor.
Soon he realized that the publishing work while important and satisfying spiritually was very demanding and needed his fulltime attention. At the same time he witnessed the breakdown of the organizational hierarchy in his gurudev's organization 'the Gaudiya math' with the successor disciples of his master in-fighting for control and management authority. This led Abhay to setup his own independent organization to fulfill his masters vision, this new organization was to be called 'The league of devotees' that was setup in 1953 in Jhansi, India. While initially it was promising, pretty soon he found that other members were not so dedicated and their interest was more on self recognition instead of God realization. He was spending more time in managing people and keeping the organizations purpose alive for which he received little help from others. Moreover this was taking him away from his gurudev's instruction of printing books.
Disillusioned Abhay sought Sri Krishna's blessings and he recognized that being a grahastha (householder) with family and spiritual work fulltime were not congruent goals. His children old enough now, he concluded that retirement from householders life and diving fulltime into missionary work was due. To that end he found an accomodation in Sri Sri Radha Damodar temple in Vrindavan where he would spend the next several years, reading, writing, translating, contemplating and publishing Krishna literature. It was here that he received the calling that for being able to preach successfully and effectively sannyasa (renunciation) would be required. And so in 1959, he accepted sannyasa initiation from his Godbrother Srimad Bhakti Pragyana Keshava maharaj. Now Abhay charan was Swami AC Bhaktivedanta. Hereafter being free from household life and without any worldly attachments, he moved his place of preaching work to Chhipiwara in old Delhi. This was because in those days, Chhipiwara was quite close to several wholesale traders of paper and printing presses. At Chhipiwara a quaint old temple dedicated to Sri Sri Radha Vallabh became his base.
It was at this Chhipiwara temple that after years of singular hardwork and preaching day and night he was able to publish his first translation of Srila Vyasdevs monumental work Srimad Bhagvatam. With this, he realized his life mission was to publish as much Krishna culture works as possible and preach them far and wide. By 1964 he knew that to fulfill his masters words of preaching in english in the west, he would need to journey to west. But how? He was in his 70s, had hardly any money, was all alone and had no prior experience of travel to the west. But as Krishna would have it, he was destined to receive help from several unexpected quarters in fulfilling this mission. Notably enough after much pursuance, he received a free ticket aboard a freight ship named Jaladuta due to the magnamity of its proprietor Ms Sumati Morarji to go to America in 1965. And thus it happend -- an old man of 70 with just Rs 40 in hand, a box full of his books and an ardent desire to fulfill his masters command, Swami AC Bhaktivedanta landed in Boston harbor, after a 5 week arduous voyage in which he suffered two heart attacks that nearly killed him.
They say when Krishna protects noone can kill. When Krishna provides noone can stop. This was true for Swami Bhaktivedanta. Purely based on his 100 percent sincerity in following his masters words to spread the glories of krishna worldwide, Swami Bhaktivedanta in the following 12 years until his passing in 1977, would circuit the world 14 times, publish 50+ books, found the International Society for Krishna Cosciousness (ISKCON) in New York city in 1966, spread the Hare Krishna movement on every continent, establish hundred of temples and initiate hundreds of thousands of devotees. This was a giant leap for vedic culture in the spread of Krishna consciousness and the Harinam Sankirtan, the mission of Lord Chaitanya worldwide.
For a detailed and exhilarating expose to the wonderful life and preaching of Srila Prabhupada, please refer to Srila Prabhupada Lilamrita.
Jai Srila Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada!
